Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

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Am I an animal?

File name: Untold Stories

Passcode: 8675309

Pacing. Back and forth. In my little room in Media Monastery, I felt restless. It was much like the dream I'd had last night— an edgy feeling that there was something I couldn't shake. I couldn't quite focus on anything. Dreams, dreams of a home across the desert.

Sorchen— am I truly Talented, or is it just something that anyone could learn? What kind of impact could an off sphere medica gone rogue have on Shurwinn? What is this all really about? What is it for? What am I for?

I'd already had my morning workout, but I couldn't relax. Denten and I no longer met in dojo 6; I had re-started my morning greeting the sun flow in the common dojo with the other participants. Maybe I needed to spar someone? Get Peydran to dance? No, he was too busy.

Write? Can't focus. Argh! I felt like I needed to run into the desert, wild and free. I tried tapping my fingertips just below my eyes. Usually, that helped me calm down. I just kept doing it and breathing, and I started to realize that I wasn't truly anxious. It wasn't panic or worry. It was something else.

But WHAT? What was it? I slowed my breathing further. There were pieces. Puzzle pieces. Little scraps of knowledge— Chaludra, a quest I hadn't known I was on, a Talent or something new that I didn't understand. Dreams. A man I belonged with that I haven't ever seen but feel that I know. Messages from Ancient Earth: know thy self. Ankh symbol— the threshold of life and death and eternity. A painting of Creation in the Sistine Chapel.

Friends appearing in the monastery out of no where; kind people just being generous. A new career. Weird food choices. Even weirder pranks on my new friends. Coming out from behind a curtain and letting people see who was becoming, even though I didn't understand it myself.

I didn't understand anything.

Uncertainty.

Uncertainty.

Uncertainty.

Questions that didn't have answers.

Stars, why was it so hard? Choice. It was about choice. I got all wound up because there's something pushing on me, and I needed to make a choice. But what? What was this all about?

Home.

That had been my dream— a home across the desert. Should I start looking for a house? Was I ready to put down that kind of roots? Financially I was doing well. At my citizenship meeting, Timben had explained the monetary options for businesses like mine. The Shurwinn weren't just promoting viewers to my stream, they offered a stipend based on the number of views. And the stipend was larger for off sphere traffic.

Because they considered stream sites as marketing, all the Trade Guilds who exported goods off sphere had marketing budgets to support stream sites like mine. All the recipes that I published had Shurwinn ingredients like chili powder or spice mixes. And while people on other spheres could easily find substitutes— they didn't have to use Shurwinn exports— it was still considered a promotion of the goods exported from Shurwinn.

I wasn't promoting a brand or a company; I was promoting the sphere as a whole. So, I had my savings, and had a small stipend coming in. I could begin looking for a house, but that just— well, something felt off about that. I had a niggling feeling, a sense that there was something more I had to do before I got to that point. Everything just felt so vague and confounding.

Deep breath. Sigh. I felt the decision turn a switch inside me: Stay where I was.

Oh! Wait! I remembered something that I'd back-burnered weeks ago. I'd found a research paper from a university study in the Bootes Galaxy about uncooked vegetarian diets and cybernetics surgery. Yes, yes, yes! That was exactly what I had been missing.

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I pulled up the study and re-read it. I sent a request to the author, asking him if he would be willing to speak with me informally. If he saw my stream site, he'd see how crazy I'd been acting lately, but hopefully he'd see it for the joke it was, and not unprofessionalism.

Feeling relieved, I transmitted the message and hoped I'd get a favorable reply. Being able to connect across the galaxy with someone else who had questions about odd diets and was trying unusual solutions would be refreshing. Especially someone who was looking at things from a scientific viewpoint rather than a mystical one.

What had happened to me since the brain injury? So much had turned inside out. I still felt like a scientist; I couldn't let go of the need to research and explain. But I had questions that felt like they couldn't be answered. How were there so many mysterious things happening to me? Elderly ladies calling me Siblin Lone Warrior Nun. Then Sorchen seeing me in the library and pointing me to the Delphic Sybil painting and Chaludra.

It wasn't coincidence. But I had no explanation for it. And what of the dreams? The man? The presence? How did all of it fit together? How was I going to find him? If I tried really hard with my senses, could I reach him again?

What a game! This is glorious! Will they figure out it's me, do you think?

- Sibsil Creed, Stories of Shurwinn, (2782)

Erotica is a force of nature. Nature animates all things. Nature wishes to live. The breath of life animates. Erotica is sensual but not always sexual. Connect to erotica and you connect to the force of nature. Life springs from erotica through the intention of the forms that shape it.

- The Art and Practice of Conception

Journal

Stand. Breathe. I feel my body. I feel my breath. I am my body. I am my breath. I am more than my body. I am more than my breath. I expand. I allow myself to feel. I allow my senses to stretch. I feel my body. I feel the floor. I stretch out.

I tried one of the exercises in The Art and Practice of Conception in my room today. I felt like I wanted to start moving, and the book had said to "follow your body as it flowed with erotica," so I started bending, and reaching, and kicking, and striking, and balancing.

Two hands, one foot. Lift. Wrap. Tuck. Stretch. Strike. I was flowing into a combination of Jendo and Tindin forms. I felt a lightness in my chest. I did feel something. I felt connected to these two parts of myself— the old forms of Jendo mixing with the newer flow of Tindin.

Two aspects of my life blending into one shape. It was exhilarating and freeing, and I lost myself in it. Moving. Stretching. Jabbing. Rolling. Striking. Lunging. I came to a rest on my back on the floor. High. I was high! High as a cloud in the sky! I floated. I felt so full of life. Was that erotica? The feeling of being alive?

I inhaled deeply and felt a question leak out of my inner being: "Are you erotica? Are you a force of nature?" I felt warmth filling me. I felt desire fill me. I let it fill me, and I let it subside. I didn't have to do anything about it.

I could have a sensual experience without it being sexual. Erotica was just one of the many forces of nature. I didn't have to do anything about rain or wind or sun. All of these things just were. Erotica was a part of me. It was a part of all things.

I slowly came back to myself and opened my eyes. I felt like I understood something. All things were connected. All things were animated by forces I didn't fully understand. What was gravity, really? What gave a fetus life, really? It was more than a sperm and an egg. It was a self. Like me. I had a self. An inner being-ness.

And that self was connected to all. I could connect to all things. Just by tuning into my own sensations, and then stretching them out. Opening up my inner being to all that existed. Was that what Sorchen had meant? Could I teach other people to do it? Did I want to?

"Delightful! Please, Ryst, let us speak again," said my new friend Gentia Depran from the Bootes Galaxy.

I decided to plunge forward, "Would you be interested in doing a video with me on my stream site, Gentia? I could interview you as a guest, and we could chat like this about topics like your research, or just practical things."

"I would love to! Do you have a date in mind?"

"I'll have to do some planning and get back to you. It will probably be a few weeks."

"Excellent. I'll forward all the files I have to you, and that will keep you busy for a few years," he chuckled. He was an exuberant fellow with an easy humor and quick smile. Talking to him had been natural and profoundly encouraging.

Gentia had tripped into uncooked diets when his daughter had been augmented and the cybernetics surgery'd had too many complications. They had been considering reversing it when he found information about vegetarianism. They'd tried it, and she'd responded well. It had been many years ago, and she continued to do well.

Gentia wasn't a medica. He was a pharmica researcher; he researched medications. In time, he had decided to formalize his daughter's dietary strategy into a research study. It was ongoing, and the results were positive for all of the enrolled patients. Even though he didn't know much about my own symptoms, he said all of their patients were on supplements and recommended lab work routinely to be sure no deficiencies arose over time.

While he hadn't been able to give me any specific materials on traumatic brain injury for my own personal situation, he did have a compilation of research from across the 9 Galaxies, and he was thrilled I had contacted him. He said he had other "friends" in other galaxies, and it was "nice to add Andromeda to the collection."

I closed the conversation with Gentia and turned to my little monastery room. I sent a message to Peydran that we'd have a guest from Bootes coming on the stream site and needed a video date. Yea me! Getting the off-galaxy connections going!

Peydran: NO WAY, Ryst! I said you were a superstar! I told you!!!

Ryst: Couldn't have done it without you

Peydran: Headed to Equi tomorrow for convention. Massive project. Cross-galatic video plans forthcoming. SUPERSTAR!

Ryst: Sunshine greet you on every shore!